


Below Cerulean Sails

by KKaylaKayleb



Series: DomSub Verse [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Alternate Universe - DomSub Verse, Alternate Universe - No Sburb/Sgrub Sessions, Beforian use of cull, Dom/sub, Domestic Violence, F/F, F/M, Hurt, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Mind Control, Resignation to fate, Sexual Violence, Sub!Tavros, Trainer!Vriska, Unhealthy Relationships, Violence, humans and trolls share a planet
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-14
Updated: 2015-07-14
Packaged: 2018-02-04 15:07:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1783396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KKaylaKayleb/pseuds/KKaylaKayleb
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Vriska, for as long as I've known her, has always liked playing dangerous games. Games where she was in charge and I had to give over all my power to her, and trust her with nothing less than my life. She's tested it more times than I would like to admit.<br/>-- --------<br/>An AU set in a world where having Harems is a practice widely indulged on Alternia, Vriska is a Trainer for the Submissives, but she keeps Tavros as her own, sailing her ship and gathering a reputation as one of the most ruthless and effective Trainers on this side of the sea.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sea Legs

Vriska, for as long as I've known her, has always liked playing dangerous games. Games where she was in charge and I had to give over all my power to her, and trust her with nothing less than my life. She's tested it more times than I would like to admit.

When we were younger, she liked to FLARP a lot, and when she played with me, the terms were the same. She was the master of the game, and I was just the player, the victim. I trusted her though, even though I guess I shouldn't have.

That's why she kept me around, I think. I was the only one who ever trusted her wholeheartedly. I think, after a while I developed some kind of Stockholm Syndrome. I couldn't say no, because I wanted her to be happy, even if it was at my expense. Sometimes I think she would have just been happier if I had died somewhere along the way.

Nobody else trusted her the way i did, or maybe, now that I think about it, nobody ever trusted her at all. My brother told me she was bad news the moment he met her.

I didn't listen though. Vriska was the only close friend I ever really had. She didn't even really mind how far apart we were on the hemospectrum, but I think she was trying to cull me anyway.

Rufioh did put his foot down the day she pushed me off a cliff though. My dad wasn't happy either, but I was really just glad I'd landed in the water and not the beach. Who knows how much worse off I would have been, even though now I think that would have saved me a lot of trouble.

I wasn't allowed to see her till the next season, after my brother left for his Cavilreaper training. She actually snuck in the window, and told me she wanted me to come with her to play. I thought it was just some midnight FLARPing, we had done that plenty of times before, but when I went to grab my gear she told me I wouldn't need it.

She introduced me to a new game that night, same terms as always. She was the master of our game, but we used different titles. She was my Mistress, and I was her Pet. It was a fun game, even though she seemed to get more enjoyment out of it than me, but I played along, because I got to see her happy, and I saw a side of her I had never seen before. She was beautiful, and she fit the role well, in complete control of all of me. 

That night I entered a world I had never known existed, and sometimes I wish I never had.

\-- -------- -

That first time it wasn't so bad. It was hardly even sexual, in my mind anyway. It wasn't like I hadn't been naked in front of her before.

The FLARPing we did usually ended up in me getting hurt in some way, but Vriska was always there to patch me up, no matter what happened. When things got really rough, she made me undress all the way, and she checked me over for even the smallest marks.

When I say she made me, I don't mean that she told me to and I obeyed. I was too nervous and she was too impatient for that. She had powers, and she used those to take over my body and made me undress myself. It was humiliating, but, like anything we did together, I put my trust in her with it.

When we went FLARPing after then, she made sure i got hurt. Not badly, but enough that she could, I suppose, justify me getting naked in front of her. She still used her powers, even though as time went on I became more willing to do it just to please her.

Before that first time she introduced me to being her pet, there was nothing strange about being naked when she was clothed. But somehow, the air of it shifted and I would start to react to being so exposed. I moved into her touch when she would check me over, and I felt something new, arousal.

I don't remember the first time I started leaking, or the first time I slipped out or even the first time she teased me for moaning, but I will never forget the first time she touched me intimately.

It was more than the lingering brushes of her inspections, and far more direct than any physical move she had ever pulled on me even in a fight. I remember she pressed up against my back, breathing a sigh into my ear as I lay out before her, bent over a chair since she'd been checking the backs of my legs.

"Pupa," she had crooned, in the most gentle tone I she had ever used with me. "Do you want me to stop?"

It was the first and last time she had ever asked my permission for anything. And, even though the simple question tugged something undeniably terrified in my gut, I shook my head. I wanted her to go on, and it was in the next moment I realized she had been holding back with me.

Every interaction we had became more intense from there. Each was charged with tension I had no name for, but it held heavy in the air when we would play until the end when I would be exposed with her pressed close and leaving my skin burning for her cool hands. Without even realizing it, I had been trained to crave the interactions below deck on her ship and in the cave I had called my Pupa's Den.

She came by when my brother came back on leave, between his training and official leave. She brought her sister, Aranea, who was a friend to my brother, and she lead me away while her sister caught up with the latest additions of 'the life of Rufioh Nitram'.

She lead us to my den immediately, tugging me after her with her mind. She had something important to discuss, I could tell from the way she worried at her lip, an uncommon gesture she didn't even realize she was doing.

"I'm leaving soon, Pupa," she informed me when we entered the chamber. " Before the quarter sweep, and you're coming with me."

There was no room for protest; not with her grip on my mind, and not with my grip on my own emotions. I would have been begging her to take me if not already scheduled. It gave me only a perigee and a half to gather what I needed and say my goodbyes.

I wrote to my brother after he left and I wrote a note to my father the night before I left, not three days before my sixth sweep. We left on her ship before dawn, and the wind carried us exactly where she wanted to go. We had sailed together enough that it was no challenge to get going, or to keep going, and the eighth night on her ship, once the paranoia of being followed had left her for good, she initiated the game again. But I found the rules had changed.

I still had to put all my trust in her, but I was expected now to be completely obedient, no matter what she asked of me, and she alone was my master, so any and all words of hers were law to me. Full submission, I soon discovered, was to be my future.

She tested me in the following days, not once using her powers on me and I followed her every whim as we sailed to our destination. She had me comfortable with being exposed in full view on the deck, and not to flinch back from her when she would trail her cold hands over my skin.

The first time she actually engaged me sexually I was shocked; and when I hesitated she hit me across the backs of my legs with the broad side of her sword, it stung enough to make me cry out.

Where I had hoped for pity I found she delighted in the sound, molesting me even as the flat of her blade brought my tawny blood rising to tint my grey skin every place she hit as well as my face as I flushed. She had trained me into appreciating the sting of the pain as she brought me to my knees with pleasure, and I felt a twinge of lingering shame and arousal as she hit me again while I cleaned my own material from the ground.

\-- -------- -

Our destination took some time to reach, an old shipwreck hive in what must have been the middle of the ocean, and I was told to wait below deck while she discussed business with the strange and eccentric seatroll.

When she called me up, I came and was greeted by not one, but two unfamiliar faces. Next to the seatroll was a young psionic. Or I had supposed he was young, from his slight build, but the peculiar thing was the metal band encircling his head over his eyes.

Apparently the sea troll wanted Vriska to do to the yellowblood what she had done to me. Train him, in exchange for what looked to be some very important papers, and after a few clarifying questions and signatures on a contract, the smaller troll was handed over and the violet blood left. We were to stay ported there until further notice.

Before I had thought Vriska had stopped holding back with me, but after I saw the measures she took to break down the boy, Sollux as I later learned he was called, she had been almost flushed in the way she treated me.

When he broke though, she gave him respite, and then trained him into complacency, submissive and even willing and she walked the changed troll back to the hive, and a few hours later she returned, proud as she hung the certificate on the wall outside her quarters.

I was taken in and set to pleasing her, praise for the work she had done through defiling me. I let her, it had become more common and if I was good I would feel pleasure from it too, but that night it was more. That night she took the last thing I would ever call my own; took it from deep inside me with her body, and the invasion was not so unwelcome.

When she let me go to clean I saw that what she had gotten was a certificate to be a Trainer, approved and officially licensed to do to whatever troll was brought to her what she had done to me and to Sollux, by any means she deemed necessary. I knew in that moment that there would no longer be any barriers with her, and it shook me to my core.

\-- -------- -


	2. Beginning of the End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here's chapter two, sorry it took so long.  
> Last time i got a few comments on how Tavros seemed a bit OOC, but in this story Vriska has isolated him from anyone else he could call a friend.

The next place we went to port was farther from home but, as far as I could tell, still on the same side of the sea. The whole place reminded me of the drawings of pirate cove in my Pupa Pan stories, but even as I peeked from the small porthole on the side of her ship, I could tell Vriska was personally escorting me from my childhood fantasies into the real world of the fable's origin.

Of course I knew that the stories had to come from somewhere, but I had never so much as dreamed that there would be an actual pirate port. Excitement welled up in me, making me smile despite my feelings of dread at why she would have brought me there, or how she even knew the location.

She ordered me to wait above deck but out of sight for her while she went out that night, leaving just as the sun had sunk over the sea. I stayed back, obedient, but watchful from the high crow's nest of her ship, The Arachnid's Grip.

I could see pretty far from where I was, watching her walk down the dock and to into some place along side it with a bright light and from what I could tell a very busy rumpus block, but as I awaited her return I saw many people go in, using my spyglass to look closer. I saw trolls of almost every caste go in, and I think its the only time I ever saw a rustblood walk in ahead of a seadweller.

By the time she got back I was cold and tired, but she was drunk and happy, so I didn't feel too bad. She even smiled when she looked up at me, with a smile closer to genuine happiness and farther malice than I had seen in a while, and called out to me.

"Fly down, Pupa! There are decks to clean and I want my ship shining when we open for business at dawn tomorrow! And if it isn't ready you'll be hanging from the rigging by breakfast," she smirked up at me.

I knew she wouldn't kill me by then, and I trusted her. She would get bored without me, she said, and I believed her.

\-- -------- --

The whole ship was at its best when she woke up, not really one for hangovers but she either recovered fast or she never let it show. She was up bright and early, to inspect my work.

I made sure to repaint the railings, deep cerulean, like her blood, and i checked the rigging for fraying, and I cleaned the ship from stem to stern. To say she was pleased would be an overstatement, but, she was as pleased as someone like her could be, and it gave me just a little bit of pride, and she let me below deck to go and sleep for a while.

\-- -------- --

When I woke up it was around lunch time; I made my way to the galley to get my rations as well as Vriska's, since I could tell she hadn't been in. I put on some pants, in case she had company and brought her food above deck.

She did, and I was almost surprised to see the large number of trolls on deck, quite a few seadwellers for the crowd and all of them sailors, captains or a station or two lower. I brought her lunch over to the table she was at, talking to some older looking bluebloods, who, much to my lament, looked up at me.

"This is a member of your crew?" asked the tallest.

"This IS my crew. Tavros, say hello." she said, smirking.

"H-Hello," I obeyed, bowing my head slightly.

"And what is your station?" his companion asked.

"He's my--" she began, but he cut her off.

"I asked the boy."

I looked to Vriska, for any hint of what I was supposed to say. I wasn't her first mate, or even second. And I couldn't be called general crew, since I was the whole crew, and picking anything with a title would be presumptuous of me, and since I did all the jobs anyway... I took a deep breath.

"I-I am Her's, sir. No less and no more." I looked him in the eye, a little braver as Vriska pat my knee under the table.

"And what is she to you? Is she yours?" he asks, tone condescending and curious. I could tell he wanted the answer, but I could also tell he wanted me to answer wrong. Vriska got that same look when she asked me a trap question, which was often enough for me to know that face.

"She is my Captain, my Master, and my Marquise." I didn't look away, even though I really wanted to. I was almost shaking under the intense gaze he had, but then he broke into a smile, turning back to Vriska.

"He is well trained Captain Serket. Did he earn you your license?"

"No. I got it training a psionic for a seadweller. Didn't break easy, but that never stopped me before." she smirked with her usual air of confidence, and I resisted the urge to shudder at the memories. He nodded though.

"How many had you trained before?" his companion asked.

"Just this one. Got lots of practice though." I bowed my head as she gestured at me.

"That was ambitious of you." he said, and the skepticism was not hidden in his tone.

"I know what I can handle." she said, leaning forward, an obvious challenge, baring her teeth as she smiled.

"We'll see." he said, baring his teeth in a scowl, accepting the challenge as he took a form from her table, filling in the information requested.

\-- -------- --

We spent the next day buying and stocking enough supplies for a full crew three months at sea. We rolled the barrels of cargo into the ship after the delivery, which took a few hours with just the two of us. She rolled one and had me pushing two up the walk and down into the cargo, stacking them accordingly. I was just amazed to see it so full. Even after her most successful pirating quests the hull was always less full, and it made me wonder how much she'd actually been paid to train these other trolls. When I asked her though she didn't answer, she corrected me.

"They have to pay half up front, Pupa. How else do they expect me to get the supplies I need? And it costs just a tiny bit more for humans." She smirked at me, pleased at my shock and also proud of the opportunity it presented for profit.

I had never even seen more than a few humans in my life, but I had heard lots about them. Mostly that they were trouble, and I didn't even want to know where she got the idea that training them would be a good idea, or that a whole ship-full of what I could assume were unruly people would be a good idea. "Where are we even going?"

That question earned me a slap to the face, revoked deck privileges, and I would be showing exactly how sorry I was later that night, after I finished moving the rest of the barrels myself and tying up hammocks for the crew to sleep on while we sailed.

When I went to her quarters that night she explained to me exactly what my station was on the ship, in excruciating detail with the aid of the new flog she had purchased across my back.

"Pupa, I don't know why it is I have to keep disciplining you like this. Honestly, I don't know if you're just stupid or its in your blood to be this forgetful and wont of pain. You are not allowed to just know things like that. You don't have the privilege. You will never have it. Your place is below me. It always has been and it always will be. This is my ship and you are allowed to stay because I let you. You are useful and entertaining. That's really all you'll ever be good for." She paused her tirade on my mind and emotions to attack my body.

She never touched me gently, not once since we had started the game so long ago. Everything she did was painful, made to make me cry and cry out, what could I ever do to make her happy?

Well, I knew I could always appease her by submitting, so I did.

"I'm sorry!" I cried out, cringing preemptively from her next blow, but it did not fall, and for a moment it was silent.

"What, exactly, are you sorry for?"

"I-i'm sorry I f-forgot my place. A-and that I, um, questioned your leadership. I... I had no right." I hung my head, tears falling freely to the floor.

"And what is your place, Pupa?" I could no longer feel her presence at my back, but I did not break stance, just stayed, quivering lightly in fear and exhaustion and the regretful arousal that always managed to creep over me in these horribly painful sessions.

"M-my place is... Below you. Always. I-i am yours... To do with as you please." I panted lightly, using all my strength on staying upright and pushing out those humiliating words.

"Why?" She prompted, coming around to lift up my chin with her flog, and I could smell my own blood staining it. Her voice was dangerously soft, and as I met her eyes, I could see the true malice behind them. "What makes me so much higher than you?"

"B-blood." I said, not breaking eye contact with her; there would be worse punishment for that than a mere whipping, I had learned. "Because you're Cerulean and I'm--"

"A shitblood." She finished for me, and I could not hold back the cringe. She didn't normally hold back her speech with me, but she had never used that particularly gruesome slur. I could sense her delight at it though, my jaw locking and my mouth dry. Maybe I was as stupid as she said, for forgetting how sadistic she was, oh, but how gracious she could be. "Say it."

I parted my dry lips, a whimper caught on the back of my words and new tears falling as I did as I was told.

She would not let me stop repeating it. I said it for her all night, as she cleaned my back and as she brought me to release.

"Next time," she said, wiping my own material off on my leg and tossing a sponge at me. "I hope you won't forget your place."

I took it gratefully, and cleaned the floor and myself, still crying silently as she left.

"I won't, Captain, never again."

\-- -------- --

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did warn you i wanted it to get worse before it would get better. But feel free to leave comments, i'd be happy to hear what you guys think, and i'll be trying to tighten up the update schedule.


	3. First Impressions

I rose with the sun the next day, waking from another nightmare just as the first rays of light reached over the horizon. I went above deck to watch, silently thanking the light. It was a godsend from the dark dungeon if my dreams, the likes of which were, thankfully, far from even the worst of times I'd survived in my waking hours.

I went to go wake Vriska before the sun finished its ascent into the sky, then went to make breakfast for us, almost overwhelmed by the vast amount of supplies. When I returned she was fully dressed, smirking at her own dashing reflection, then at me as our eyes caught in the mirror.

"Are you ready to welcome the crew, Pupa?" She asked, and I nodded, setting her breakfast at her desk, and she came to eat it. "Good. Don't forget your place on this voyage. I am your Captain first, and your Master past that. Don't fail me."

"Aye aye." I said, still standing tall as she looked away from me to eat, speaking between bites that I would be showing a few of the younger additions how they will be doing their jobs aboard the ship, and that she hoped I got a good sleep because I would also be keeping an eye on them at night.

I nodded, mindful of her every word. I knew little of how important that first voyage was, but it would leave a definite impression on my life and her's from there.

\-- -------- ---

The two bluebloods from the first day were the first to arrive, shortly after we came above deck. Vriska gathered their paperwork, assigned to train a female yellowblood, and an oliveblood male. There was still a little tension in their gazes but there wasn't leisure time to test bounds like before.

Others came, many I had seen yesterday, and their unfamiliar lower spectrum companions, each greeting Vriska respectfully as their master explained to them she would be their captain for the next while, and I took each below deck to show them their bunks, the general quarters and explain the rules.

The first human I met was brought in by a tealblood who seemed in such a rush to be rid of the boy that I was surprised he had not already killed his pink skinned, russet haired pet.

"Three months and five days? Are you certain that will be enough time, Captain Serket?" He asked, foot tapping impatiently as she took her time responding.

"Of course it will." She said, almost dismissively as she looked the boy over. He couldn't have been more than seven sweeps. "He will be ready, willing and well versed when I finish with him."

She pushed him over to me and I took him as the others, down to his bunk to set in with his few possessions, and was stopped by an ochre, like myself, but with small horns that curved gently forwards and up.

"Will we really be sleeping with a human?" She asked, and I almost winced at her tone as I shrugged.

"Captain's orders. No separation down here. We're all on the same level."

"We?" Called out the human, and I knew almost immediately he would not make the voyage easy. "Are you saying that I'm the same as them? What does that make you?"

I smiled a little, rueful but proud. "I belong to Captain Serket, which makes me just high enough to be above you, but I still belong to her." That bit of confidence I had in the matter of my station proved just enough to settle him, at least enough to draw the accusers and bystanders back quietly to their beds as I climbed the stairs again.

\-- -------- ---

The morning seemed fairly long, loading up the crew, but once we found out who had experience sailing it was a little easier, and we set off just after lunch. Vriska was at the helm, steering us north and away from the coast. Onto the open ocean, and she had us tying down the sails to catch a strong westerly breeze, before we were to meet her at the stern on the main deck.

"Alright, everyone better be here because I'm taking roll and if I find out any one of you is trying to hide from me on this ship you'll be the second test for my new flog. Just ask Tavros about how it feels if you don't believe me." A smirk lit up my Captain's face as a dark blush heated my own, but luckily enough I was allowed a shirt that day to hide the still fresh marks from the curious glances I felt from all around me. They were quickly distracted, however, when Vriska's head turned to the side of the ship, a predatory air about her as her smirk turned cruel.

"You have ten seconds to climb back aboard before I throw you in the water." She said, watching as two trolls climbed on deck, and a human shortly after, the troublemaker from earlier. "State your names."

"T-Tamaar," the first troll answered, standing at attention, her horns sloping back almost against her skull.

"Jakodi." The second said, shaking too much to stand straight with his small, curling horns turned at the ground.

"Zach." The human replied, his bright red hair almost as fiery in the sunlight as his defiance. My master did not take kindly to his tone though, and it was almost tangible in the air as she reached out with her powers and he collapsed onto the floor, hitting his head hard but not waking from the powerful sleep she had set on him.

"Humans," she sneered, turning the attention of the crew back to her. "Take a lesson from this one wrigglers. Punishment will be swift and merciless here. No one is exempt."

As her eyes fell over the crowd again she took a moment to meet my eyes, and I remembered to be afraid of her again, bowing my head in submission without even the slightest hint of her powers on me.

\-- -------- ---

We were sorted into groups by the end of the meeting, Vriska making everyones' purpose very clear to them, and told them to come to me if they had questions their peers couldn't answer. I was sent down to the galley to watch over the soon to be chefs and teach them how to lay a meal. I was genuinely surprised when we managed to prepare decent food with no loss of limbs.

I took the Captain her meal, and gave a report on how the kitchen crew was fairing, and she advised me to stay with them another day. She had me stay present as she ate, so I could take her plate back when she was done, with orders to return to her after lights out.

"Oh, and, Pupa," she said, casually picking her teeth with a knife as I gathered her dishes. "Leave your shirt with me."

I whimpered lightly, but followed her order. Everything she said was an order it seemed. An order or a challenge, she never made suggestions or conjectures. She was so confidant in what she said, I would have envied that if it were my place to do so. I thought on that as I walked back to the crowded eating area, but it passed my mind when the new crew quieted at my entrance. A chorus of whispers took my place as I left the room, knowing they could all see my back as I exited the room.

A jade girl came and touched my shoulder as i sat, eating quietly with my back still to the group in the galley, she spoke quietly. "Are these the marks the Captain left on you?"

I nodded, thinking it odd she would ask. No one but my family had taken interest in my scars before, not that I had anyone to go to who would, but I thought perhaps it was the freshness of the marks that had bemused her.

"Of course." I replied simply, but she stayed behind me, and I could feel her eyes on me just as I could feel the others staring as well.

"So many scars..." She mused, almost to herself and she traced a gentle finger over one long since healed, at the back of my neck. I remembered it as my first time falling from the rigging. I had caught on a board and broken it before it had raked across my neck with its jagged edge.

"How old are you?"

I thought a moment on what perigee it was, shaking off the memory and shrugging as I finally turned to face her, the fewer scars on my front visible to her, her horns sticking out and drooping down like drops of wax. "About six and a half now. Why?"

Oh, but if that look on her face wasn't full of pity. I averted my eyes, catching sight of the others, scoffing in disbelief and some gasping in what I almost thought was fear.

"You poor, poor soul..." She said, too soft for the pain in her voice to hold steady and she stepped back from me. I didn't know then what exactly she had meant by it, she herself was older, at least from what I could tell, but what she said struck me uneasily, and I backed further into the shadows of the galley to avoid their gazes. They looked at me with the worst kind of pity, a pity that made me feel empty in a way I didn't fully understand, as though I had missed some crucial element in the unspoken conversation.

\-- -------- ---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to leave questions and comments. Concerns even. I love yo hear from you guys.


	4. Again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy cow. That took forever. Sorry, life happened to me and also my beta had to go, so again, sorry.

After they saw the scars on my back, I couldn't tell whether I had grown closer or farther from the crew. Whatever their state, they did notice when, after checking that they had all been properly situated in their bunks for the night, I headed back to the stairs.

"Where are you going?" Asked one of the crew, another ochre with wide horns like my own, but stretched up and curved like small sails.

I gave a weak smile, the boy not much older than me and I pointed up. "My Captain wants me. I have deck duty tonight."

From the look on his face I could tell he took they two parted message as it was meant, nodding solemnly. "Good luck."

A few others shifted in their hammocks, deciding it was best left my business, but more than them were those who joined the whispered chorus to match the words of the troll who stopped me.

I wondered if they were genuine in their well wishes. They were sent here by pirates, weren't they? So why would they be honest, and why should I believe them even if they were? I mused over such things as I climbed to the main deck again, checking around and locking the hatch to below before I went to my master's door, knocking lightly.

"Enter." She said casually, as though she hadn't been waiting at all and I entered the room quietly.

She smiled at me, rolling up the map on her desk and capping the ends so it would stay, planting her feet firmly on the ground from her chair and patting her lap, an invitation for me to sit. I went and sat on her knee and she had me turn my back to her chest, her fingers tracing over the marks she had left on me the night before, still tender enough to make me whimper.

"So what did they think?" She asked, dipping the pad of her finger into one of the wider gashes that hadn't quite scabbed over and making me cry out lightly.

"I-i dont know..." I said, digging my own claws into my knees and holding still even as she dug in with her own claw.

"Dont know? What do you mean, Pupa?" She was using her gentle voice again, as she started to drag her claws over the small of my back, tears springing in my eyes when she dug into the tender flesh.

"They- ah! L-looked at m-me... L-like they were..." I stopped to bite my lip, silencing a keen as she tapped her claw against the bone of my spine. It stung and hurt in ways I could hardly begin to describe, but as she withdrew it gave me enough respite to breathe again and form the words to answer her question. "S-s-sorry for me..."

Her hand stopped a moment and I could have guessed she was thinking it over, except for the way she sat frozen beneath me.

"They haven't got a reason to be sorry, yet."

\-- -------- ----

She reopened every mark of flaying on my back and splashed a bucket of sea water on me when she was done.

"That should keep you awake till morning. I've been spoiling you Tavros. I expect you to start acting like a real first mate tomorrow. We've only got three months before a full and readied crew is due back on the east side of the sea."

And with that she left me to stay a lone sentry on till dawn. I sat in the crow's nest and looked out, fatigued and aching, at the almost endless horizon. The dull glow of the east ports and midnight cries of seagulls not enough to lull me into sleep, but some small comfort of knowing a life by, and now on the sea.

\-- -------- ----

 

She let me sleep a few hours inbetween breakfast and lunch. Not enough to restore, but enough to maintain, before i had to go back up and help with the chores, working without a shirt to let my wounds breathe. Several people came to ask how I was, if I needed help, or what their assignment was. I mostly redirected them to the others who showed knowledge on the more experienced sailors among them, abating their concerns for my health with simple answers.

"I'm fine." "It doesn't hurt much anymore." "It'll heal soon." "I've had worse."

They were reluctant, but they left me to my tasks, and I left them to theirs, drifting below deck to check on the cooking crew and taking quick stock of our supplies.

She let me have four mates watch the ship with that night, so i could train them to watch, without rest, and careful enough to spot if the sea was not clear, and how to steer away from trouble. A little olive named Toreem took to the wheel like she was hatched for it, and a human female, Claire, was quick to learn adjusting the sails with the slipknots. The two rust boys, Kenrot and Deejob were slower at learning, but I was slow at teaching in my state, and before dawn I settled for letting them swab the decks while I checked the rigging for frays, sealing the loose strands over with glue that burnt new callouses into my hands.

\-- -------- ----

Things stayed like that for a while, teaching at night and in the afternoons, only not falling behind on sleep for how hard and fast it took me when I hit my bunk. It wasn't pleasant, but I fell into ease with it over a week, Vriska mercifully not calling on me those next nights, and the crew gradually getting better at their tasks.

After a week had passed though, she called me back to her quarters after dark, letting a handful of crew stay and watch the ship.

"Pupa," she greeted me, turned towards her mirror, fixing her outfit even though she was about to take it off for bed. "Would you say the crew are taking to their posts well?"

The question threw me a little. It was almost like she had asked my opinion on their progress. "They're... Getting the hang of it."

She nodded slowly, catching my eye with her reflection. "Its time for their first progress assessment."

My orders were to stay on the lower deck, check our supplies, specifically, the weapons cache and ammunition storage, and make sure everything was in working order.

"Don't you dare come back to me until you've counted every cannonball, done maintenance on all the cannons and sharpened all the swords and knives. I don't care how long it takes, I expect you not to come above deck until its done. And I don't want you babying the crew anymore. They can figure things out for themselves, its been long enough." My Captain commanded, and I was sure not to fail her.

It was a respite from the chaos on deck, all the crew constantly in need of supervision and assistance. Being below even the sound if waves was somehow a beautiful silence, even though it did seem a lot like limbo.

Time never seemed to pass under the waterline, no matter how many cannonballs I counted or how many swords I checked and sharpened. I rested some, and I brought a ration of bread for when i was hungry, and extra oil for my lamp. Electricity still wasnt quite at the point of sustainability at sea just then, despite the sudden rise in steam liners the few years before.

I took time to think back on my family, what it must have been like for them, my brother receiving the letter I sent just before or after jumping into the conflict over colonising the southern continents. And my father back in school to get his doctorate in physical wellbeing of humans and trolls, already a top doctor in the veterinary field. I supposed it would be easier to afford without me there, so i hoped he would see the best in my leaving.

Sitting and sharpening swords for a while left me tired, and I had another few bites of bread before resting. When I woke again I was soon back to work, and finished in a few hours, ready to head back up, just in time for dinner.

\-- -------- ----

It was easy enough to grab a small ration and join the mass already gathered around the tables. I didnt bother trying to hide, despite that I could with my height, my Captain knew I was there the second I stepped in and she flashed a grin at me through the crowded room.

"Pupa!" She chimed, too happy, and using that sweeps old nickname hadn't ever meant anything good since I set foot on The Arachnid's Grip. "You know your cook crew served up the worst half-meal ever laid before troll or beast yesterday? And the three I set to swab the deck just moved the dirt from one end of the ship to the other, what a total waste of seawater and soap."

She flicked her wrist at them, almost dismissively, those closer to them wincing, and from the quick glance I got, they looked bruised. "You had better teach these wrigglers how to cook and clean before I start hanging them over the edge of the ship by their toes." She said, standing with a smirk and turning to leave the room. "And I expect a plate brought to me in eight minutes exactly."

\-- -------- ----

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things will continue to get interesting. And move foreward.

**Author's Note:**

> This is just the first chapter of what I hope to be a very long and wonderful series. I hope you liked it, but even if you didn't I'd love to hear your thoughts on it.


End file.
